December 13, 2003
Scholarly dog!
12:00 p.m.
We had a bad night last night. Around 2:00 a.m., I felt Dusty jump off the bed. She ran straight to the door. I'm not very quick on my feet in the middle of the night, but I scrambled into a coat and boots and grabbed her leash so I could take her out.
Out in the hallway, Dusty squatted and started to poo. I told her 'no' firmly, and picked her up while we waited for an elevator. Once we were outside, though, she wandered around picking at sticks and wouldn't go potty. I was not amused.
Back upstairs we went, and I put her in the crate. I couldn't sleep and I could hear her moving around in the crate and whining.
So I put my coat and boots back on, grabbed the leash and prepared to go back down. By this time it was 2:30 a.m. This time, I *did* get her to go potty, though it took her a long time to find a spot. I just don't understand how she can squat in the hallway like it's some big emergency, then requires a half-hour to find the perfect spot of ground outside (particularly in the middle of the night, when it's cold).
On the way back up in the elevator, I had the following conversation a woman who was admiring my dog:
"That's a cute dog! What's her name?"
"Thanks, her name is Dusty."
"Oh! That's a cute name!"
"Yeah, it means 'dog-who-shits-on-the-floor' "
[laugher]
I slept in this morning, and I'm going to try to get Dusty back on some kind of schedule so these middle-of-the-night jaunts won't become routine.